The Unicorn Tapestries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cavallo, Adolfo Salvatore (1998)

This title is in print.

Publication Details

Description

Among the most popular attractions at The Cloisters, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a set of tapestries depicting the hunt of the fabled unicorn. This is the first book in more than two decades on these extraordinarily beautiful works of art. Each of the seven exquisite tapestries is reproduced in large color-plates and with a wealth of color details. Created in the Netherlands in 1495–1505, they contain supremely memorable images—from the vulnerable unicorn and the individualized faces of the hunters to the naturalistically depicted flora and fauna. For more than a century these intriguing tapestries—like the Lady with the Unicorn series in the Musée de Cluny in Paris—have been examined and discussed at length in popular and scholarly literature. Many interpretations of their origins and subject have been proposed, yet the truth remains a mystery. For whom were they made? What symbolic meaning do they have? What stories do they tell? Here, Adolfo Cavallo, one of the world's leading authorities on medieval tapestries, addresses these issues and draws on ancient and medieval sources to explain the history of the unicorn itself and its significance as both a secular and a Christian symbol. The author also looks at the construction of the tapestries and the historical and cultural context in which they were woven. Two appendixes focus on the plants and animals in the millefleurs backgrounds for which the unicorn tapestries are also famous.

Table of contents

Foreword

Tales of the Unicorn: A New Look at the Unicorn Tapestries

History of the Tapestries

The Unicorn: What It Was and When It Thrived

The Three Hunts of the Unicorn

The Tapestries as Works of Art and How They Were Made

An Appreciation

Appendix I: Flora in the Unicorn Tapestries

Appendix II: Fauna in the Unicorn Tapestries

Suggestions for Further Reading

About the authors

Adolfo Salvatore Cavallo, a native Bostonian, studied the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture at Harvard University. He has served as a curator at The Detroit Institute of Arts; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is a specialist in the history of fine textiles and dress and more recently in late medieval tapestries. He has published extensively in various museum journals and exhibition catalogues, as well as in such periodicals as Apollo, The Art Bulletin, Burlington Magazine, and The Harvard Business Review. He is the author of Medieval Tapestries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1993). The Unicorn Tapestries is his fifth book.

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